How is Content Marketing Evolving?

 

Photo on Unsplash by Austin Distel


If there is one thing that content marketing has never been, it’s static.  It has been constantly evolving and one needs to keep pace with the changes that it has witnessed or be left behind.

Genesis

Content marketing had its genesis about a decade back when it was first realized that customers had taken to researching about the product or service they intended to use before buying them.  There was an awareness of the fact that brand stories were being told in the online world and not going according to the plans of the marketing department.

This was what led to the growth of Search Engine Optimization or SEO with content marketers scrambling to get their content ranked for the relevant keywords.  But this led to the problem of meaningless and repetitive keywords that prompted Google to change its algorithm to discourage this practice.  Meaningful and relevant content that provided value to the target audience became the new rule of the game and continues to this day.

Advent of Social Media

 

The rise of social media is an interactive and personalized means of communicating directly with one’s prospects in real time revolutionized the way content marketing happened. Social media led to the advent of passive consumption of content rather than the more pointed manner in which search engine optimization led to content consumption.  This led to the need of creating content that was both eminently sharable across platforms and capable of garnering attention at the same time.

The Rise and Rise of Video Content

 Video content has in the recent years emerged as a front-runner as the preferred medium of content consumption across target markets. In fact, by the year 2010 more than 50% of consumers preferred to consume brand content via the video medium. [1] Video is intrinsically more appealing to the senses than any other form of content and is therefore a great vehicle for engaging with one’s target audience. It, therefore, follows that video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo are an integral part of any business’s content marketing plans.

The Way Forward for Content Marketing

 

Video content is all set to continue its domination as the preferred format for content dissemination in the near future. By 2020 it was already being leveraged by 85% businesses as a potent marketing tool. As a matter of fact more than 90% marketers think of using video as one of the key components of their reach out strategy. 

 All indications point to this trend only growing and consolidating in the times ahead. In order for video content to stand out, it is going to be important for the quality to be out of the top drawer. For a video to stand out of the clutter, it needs to be extremely well made and capable of providing stellar value to the intended target audience. One would increasingly have to turn to innovative distribution channels like TikTok to ensure effective outreach.

With most online searches now happening on mobile phones, it is important that content be crafted and curated for the mobile platform. This would mean that websites would have to be optimized to display mobile content to promote successful SEO. At the same tome ones video content too should be made easily accessible on mobile devices. Other things that can add value to one’s content displayed via mobile devices is the leveraging of new age technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)

Conclusion

 

There is growing realization among new age content marketers that for content to be impactful, it needs to be customer centric. That is something that can only happen by creating content that is empathetic and capable of providing value to the prospect or customer. That is something that is well understood and supported by the Google ranking algorithm. Creating high quality content that resonates with the target audience is the way forward. Getting a handle on understanding what the target audiences’ wants, desires and expectations are is what will help one craft an effective content marketing strategy.

This requires reams of research, reaching out and engagement as the immediate precursor to content creation. An organic understanding of what it is that constitutes impactful content is the holy grail of new age content marketing.

 


[1] https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/future-content-marketing

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